John Finnis

Linking theses of Plato, Wittgenstein, and Weber, section I argues that identification of central cases and settling of focal meanings depend upon the theorist's purpose and, in the case of theory about human affairs—theory adequately attentive to the four irreducible orders in which human persons live and act—upon the purposes for which we intelligibly and intelligently act. Among these purposes, primacy is to be accorded to purposes which are, as best the theorist can judge, reasonable and fit to be adopted by anyone, the theorist included. Section II defends the reasonableness of practical and moral judgments, against Michael Perry's ultimately nihilist claims that egoism's challenge to moral normativity has gone unanswered and that “reason for A” does not entail “reason for” anyone else. Section III takes up Steven Smith's suggestion that such subjectivism is encouraged by the talk in Natural Law and Natural Rights of “pursuing goods,” talk which is individualistic and neglectful of persons, inimical to an understanding of friendship, and impotent in the face of egoism. Here as elsewhere the key is to grasp that understanding any basic or intrinsic human good is to understand it as good for anyone like me and thus—since as I instantiate and embody a universal, viz. human being—as a good common to anyone and everyone. Section IV argues that common good gives reason for exercise and acceptance of authority, and for allegiance, even in time of breakdown. Section V argues that natural law theory is no more dependent on affirming God's existence than any other theory is, in any of the four orders of theory, but equally that is not safe for atheists. For, like any other sound theory, it suggests and is consistent with questions and answers about its grounds, in this case about the source of its normativity and of the human nature that its normative universals presuppose and affirm; and the answers are those argued for, too abstemiously, in the last chapter of NLNR and, more adequately, in the equivalent chapter of Aquinas.

Written for a symposium in the University of San Diego Law School in September 2013 on Laurence Claus, Law’s Evolution and Human Understanding, this article appears in the final issue of volume 52 of the San Diego Law Review. With new illustrations and considerations suggested by the book, the article argues for a number of theses: “Because I/we say so” is never a reasonable ground or formulation of authoritative acts such as enactments or parental or other orders. The moral authority of rule makers is never peremptory in a binary as distinct from presumptive and defeasible sense. Deliberation towards the exercise or acceptance of authority is never primarily a matter of prediction or predictability of action, and is always a matter, rather, of purpose, and of creation by intelligent design than of non-purposive evolution. Those who exercise authority have no right to be obeyed, and the persons with the right correlative to a duty of compliance are those for whose benefit the rule or order was made and/or those who comply with it. The authority to make rules is a responsibility to serve the true interests of a community to which those subject to the rule belong.

Fifty years ago this year a legal practitioner turned military intelligencer turned philosopher, Herbert Hart, published The Concept of Law, still deservedly best-seller in thought about law. It presents law, especially common law and constitutionally ordered systems such as ours, as a social reality which results from the sharing of ideas and making of decisions that, for good or evil, establish rules of law which are what they are, whether just or unjust. But right at its centre is a chapter on justice, informed by Hart’s professional knowledge of Plato and Aristotle and the tradition of civilized thought about justice, thought which he sums up like this: “the general principle latent in [the] diverse applications of the idea of justice is that individuals are entitled in respect of each other to a certain relative position of equality or inequality.” “Hence”, he goes on, “[the] leading precept [of justice] is often formulated as ‘Treat like cases alike’; though we need to add … ‘and treat different cases differently’”. This article will say something about three aspects of this vast topic: (i) about the factual basis and normative grounds of equality; (ii) about the proposed principle of equal concern; and (iii) about laws and social policies that pursue equality by selective prohibition of direct and indirect discrimination, and of harassment or vilification, victimisation and offence.

This launch volume in the Founders of Modern Political and Social Thought series presents a critical examination of Aquinas' thought, combining an accessible, historically-informed account of his work with an assessment of his central ideas and arguments. John Finnis presents a richly-documented critical review of Aquinas's thought on morality, politics, law, and method in social science. Unique in his coverage of Aquinas's primary and secondary texts and his own vigorous argumentation on many themes, the author focuses on the philosophy in Aquinas's texts, and demonstrates how this interconnects with the theological elements. Professor Finnis shows how Aquinas, despite some medieval limitations, makes clear and profound contributions to present debates.

This review article, now published in the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Spring 2009, focuses on several themes in the two volumes, posthumously selected, edited and published by a daughter and son-in-law, of G.E.M. Anscombe’s philosophical and philosophical/theological essays. Of first importance is her philosophical explication and defence of the spirituality of human life, as manifested in even the simplest act such as pointing to something as an example of colour rather than of shape. With that is connected her defence of freedom of choice in face of scientistic doubts. Then there is the question of the proper interpretation of her famous thesis about the dependence of the moral ought on divine law; and the question whether or how she applied her epoch-making explication of intention in her own treatment of moral questions. The review also discusses the progress of her thought about contraception to an understanding of the relation between sex and the good of marriage itself; and her thoughts about the rational preambles to religious faith.

This paper identifies and contests the thesis it takes to be the central premise of Giubilini and Minerva, ‘Why should the baby live?’, namely that rights, subjecthood and personhood have as a necessary condition that the undergoing of a harm be experienced. That thesis entails the repugnant or absurd conclusion that we do not have the right not to be killed in our sleep. The conclusion can be avoided by adding some premise or qualification about actual capacities for experience of harm, but nothing in the Giubilini and Minerva article shows that such capacities do not exist, as actual and not merely potential, in the newly born human infant (and indeed in the unborn human child/foetus). The present paper reviews an earlier philosophical attempt to deploy an awareness criterion of personhood, and proposes objections to some other aspects of the article under consideration